


Go The Distance

by GemmaRose



Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: Canon-Typical Silliness, Disrespect, Earning Trust, Gen, He's Baby, Young Hot Rod (Transformers), but not that baby!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:07:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28463586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GemmaRose/pseuds/GemmaRose
Summary: Hot Rod is a soldier, trained personally by Kup and Ultra Magnus from the moment he had the motor skills and processing power to handle it. It’s all he’s known, his whole life defined by being a member of the Autobot resistance on Decepticon-controlled Cybertron. So why won’t the Ark crew take him seriously?
Relationships: Hot Rod & Kup, Hot Rod & Springer
Comments: 6
Kudos: 31
Collections: Secret Solenoid '20-'21





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [withersake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/withersake/gifts).



Earth, Hot Rod decided approximately two minutes after they landed, was his favourite place in the universe. The entire planet was just... so _much_! There were Bots everywhere, and even more of their little organic friends, which Mags had called humans. And everything was so _vibrant_ too, more colours than he’d ever seen in one place outside of old holovids and the scant handful of ancient games Springer and Arcee had found to keep him occupied between lessons, when he wasn’t yet cleared to run recon or fetch fuel with them. The plants were a vivid green, the sky crystalline blue, the paint on his fellow Autobots and the walls of what would someday be Autobot City all manner of bright shiny colours.

“Close your mouth, mech, you’ll catch flies.” one of the Earth Autobots, whose data tags were sparse but at least included the designation Jazz, glided up next to him and threw an arm around his shoulder.

“What’re flies?” he asked, and Jazz laughed.

“Right, fresh from the home front, eh?” Jazz rubbed his knuckles briskly over the top of Hot Rod’s helm, scuffing up his polish. “It’s a human saying, flies are these tiny little critters that buzz around organic waste.”

“Gross.” Hot Rod wrinkled his nose.

“Yeah.” Jazz nodded. “Anyone shown you around yet?”

“Not yet. I was helping Ultra Magnus unload the ship, and Arcee and Springer promised to show me around once we were done, but we finished early, so.” he shrugged, gesturing at the landing platform which bustled with activity but distinctly lacked his friends.

“Well, I can show ya a few things around the base that you can impress them with when they show you ‘round later, whattaya say?” Jazz straightened up. Hot Rod reflexively smoothed a hand over his helm to check how bad the damage to his polish was, and decided it was acceptable. If Mags got upset over it, he could always blame Jazz.

“Sounds like fun.” he gestured in front of them. “Lead the way.”

\---

“I’m guessing it’s been a while since you were around this many mechs at once.” Jazz said a few hallways into his little tour.

“More like never.” Hot Rod chuckled, tamping down the burst of uncertainty which wanted to crackle out through his field.

“Never?” Jazz raised a brow sceptically. “Cute, cheery speedster like you?”

“I mean, Cybertron ain’t exactly a social hotspot.” he shrugged. Jazz took two more steps, then froze.

“Your personnel file said you were three million.” he said slowly. “I wondered why Mags didn’t list what you did all that time.”

“What, is my two and a half million years as an active member of the Cybertron Defense under Ultra Magnus not on there?” he frowned. That didn’t seem like Mags.

“No, no, it is.” Jazz seemed to slump, his field static and optics looking vaguely dazed. Hot Rod wondered if he should comm Perceptor to come look at him. Or, no, who was the CMO here? He’d been too busy staring out the porthole to pay full attention to the briefing. “Kid, are you telling me you’re _war-forged_?”

“I’m not familiar with that word.” Hot Rod said, tilting his helm slightly as he processed it, picking apart the glyphs used in its construction. “But if I understand it right, then yes, I am.”

“But- you have a hometown listed.” Jazz pulled up what must be his personnel file, capped with a mugshot and a nice picture of his altmode, taken at the starting line of one of the makeshift obstacle courses Springer and Percy liked to set up for him and Arcee to run against Blurr. Blurr always won, of course, but it was still fun.

“Nyon is where they found me.” he explained, the story familiar from repetition upon repetition in his youth. “Springer and Percy, they went into this big old building in the middle of town looking for energon. Percy was trying to open a door, Springer decided to take it down with his shoulder, and my spark was there in the cave wall on the other side.” he held his hands out to the side. “So, here I am. Mags made sure I got trained proper and all, and I’ve been running reconnaissance missions with the lot of ‘em since I got my Rites of Affiliation done.”

“Three million...” Jazz shook his helm. “You can find your way back to the mess, right? I need to go talk to Prime.”

“Uh, yeah, I should be able to get back on my own.” Hot Rod frowned. What was the big deal? He had more experience as a soldier than most of these mechs, at least proportional to his lifespan, and even before his Rites he’d been living and fuelling and learning as an Autobot on Decepticon-controlled Cybertron.

“Bluestreak.” Jazz called out, and a mech who didn’t have a single stripe of blue on his frame darted over to them. “Escort Hot Rod to the mess please, make sure he finds his way to one of the other new arrivals.”

“Get the new guy back to his buddies got it anything else you need while I’m going that way Jazz I’m not busy and you always have the coolest fetch quests-

“Nah, Blue, I’m’ good.” Jazz interrupted easily, not even waiting for a break in what seemed to be a ceaseless string of words. And Mags thought _he_ had a glitched processor-to-vocaliser filter! “Just make sure he gets back to Mags or one of his mechs, okay?”

“Got it on it right this way Hot Rod can I call you Roddy I heard your pink friend mention a Roddy when I was showing them around is that you can I call you that it’s fine if I can’t of course I know some mechs are really picky about stuff like that it’s just such a nice nickname ykno and

“Whoa, whoa.” Hot Rod waved a hand in front of Bluestreak, as if he could stem the ceaseless flow of words that way. “Yeah, you can call me Roddy, most everyone does.” part and parcel of growing up as he had, until half an hour ago everyone he knew had known him as a barely-mobile bundle of sentio and potential. Nicknames stuck. He was just glad Roddy had been the one that stuck longest.

“Oh!” Bluestreak beamed, radiating simple satisfaction for a moment before running his mouth again. “Alright Roddy but ykno if everyone calls you Roddy anyways why not just change your name its way easier now than it used to be at least that’s what Prowl tells me he’s always on about how much better regulated but when he says that he really just means there were more rules about it now all you gotta do is get your files updated Ratchet can do it if you ask nice oh we gotta turn here the mess is right this way I don’t know why Jazz thought you needed an escort have you met Ratchet yet he acts all mean but he’s not really he just doesn’t sleep enough First Aid is always-

“I can’t answer your questions if you keep talking after you ask them, y’know.” Hot Rod interjected. Bluestreak at least had the decency to look abashed, though his doorwings flicked in tight, rapid movements like he was forcibly keeping his motormouth shut. “I like Hot Rod, I haven’t felt the need to change it that’s all. I haven’t met Ratchet yet, but I’m sure I’ll get corralled in for a proper physical today or tomorrow. Perceptor’s been making do but we didn’t exactly have a full medbay on Cybertron.” he’d actually be surprised if Magnus let him get to tomorrow without seeing Ratchet. It was sheer luck at this point he’d not gotten sick, considering he’d never gotten any sort of firewall boosters. “You sound like you came online during the war too.”

“Oh yeah right at the beginning Prowl dug me out of Praxus after it was bombed and he’s looked out for me ever since we gotta stick together ykno since it’s just us and Smokey and...” he trailed off, helm bowing and field dampening slightly with an old, quiet grief for a moment before he snapped his gaze back up with an overbright smile, bulldozing on past the sensitive topic. “But you said too so I’m guessing you were forged around then as well but obviously not an Autobot back then or you’d’ve met Ratchet he did all my check-ups personally when I was new so you were a civilian right probably went into stasis and got knocked out of it somehow and Mags picked you up?

It took a moment for Hot Rod to realize Bluestreak hadn’t shorted out his vocaliser, he was actually waiting for an answer to his question. “Oh, uh, no actually.” he twisted his arm to show the numbers stamped along a transformation seam there. Date, time, and location, a number unique to him, as every mech’s was unique to them. “Springer and Perceptor found me in Nyon, about half a million years after the Ark went down.”

Bluestreak’s jaw dropped, optics flying so wide they looked fit to pop out of his helm. “You’re _younger than me_ oh Primus that’s- you’re the first mech I’ve ever been older than aside from the dinobots but they hardly count cuz Ratchet and Wheeljack made them here they’ve never even been to Cybertron oh there's also the aerialbots I guess but they only hang out with each other wait if you’re war-forged that means you’ve only seen Cybertron all fragged up by the war you’re gonna love Earth I promise it’s no Cybertron but it’s so much prettier than what’s left but don’t tell Prowl I said that he still misses Cybertron lots and-

“I won’t tell, I promise.” Hot Rod laughed. “And yeah, I like Earth a lot already. I hear you’ve got an even bigger Decepticon problem than we had back home.” and, apparently, Bots even younger than him? That was news. He’d have to find these dinobots, see if they could be friends.

“Oh definitely huge Decepticon problem they’ve been pretty quiet lately but that just means we’re due for another scheme Megatron is always coming up with schemes one time he turned most of Optimus into an alligator and another time he tried to bring Cybertron into Earth’s orbit and-

“Oh yeah, I remember that one.” Hot Rod nodded. “Was a pit of a weird day.”

“I bet it was even weirder from Cybertron than it was from Earth I mean it wasn’t really _weird_ from Earth because Megatron does stuff like that All The Time but it was still kinda weird ykno

Bluestreak kept up his stream of chatter as they meandered into the main fuelling area Jazz had pointed out earlier, still smelling faintly of fresh paint with the walls cordoned off by tiny flimsy strands of yellow tape marked in Human font. If Hot Rod was doing his math right, then not counting the 4 million years in stasis Bluestreak wasn’t much older than him at all. It would be nice to have a friend around his own age.


	2. Chapter 2

Earth was beautiful, and Hot Rod would take all its dust and muck ten times over in favour of the bombed-out rubble he’d grown up in, but more and more often he wished they’d never come here. As soon as word got out that he was war-forged, the Ark crew’s attitude towards him had shifted drastically. He was barely allowed to walk around the base by himself, everyone but Bluestreak, the dinobots, and Prime himself insisting on escorting him to one of Magnus’s crew if he was spotted alone. He threw himself down on Springer’s berth with an emphatic groan, and his friend dropped a hand from his puzzle cube to absently pet his spoiler hub, familiar and comforting, the firm rhythmic strokes helping sooth his field back towards calm.

“What’d they do this time?” Springer asked once the worst of Hot Rod’s anger had bled off.

“Same old stupid slag.” he muttered, folding his arms over each other and resting his chin on them, staring past Springer at the window between their berths, though all he could see from this angle was a cloudy sky. “Bee insisted on finishing the cleaning I was doing, told me to take a break. I’d only just started!” he rolled onto his back, throwing his hands up in the air. Springer patted his face, and Hot Rod batted his hands away as he sat up, drawing a knee to his chest to wrap his arms around and rest his chin on. “I don’t understand.”

“The Autobots here are being stupid, is what it is.” Springer said, confident as ever. “They hear you weren’t forged ‘til after they went down, and all they hear is that you’re young.”

“So what do I have to do to convince them I’m not some helpless sparkling?” Hot Rod asked, one hand tightening around the tire on his lower leg, fingers playing with the firmer rubberised surface Ratchet had recommended for Earth’s roads. “I’ve tried bringing up our cooler missions when everyone else is sharing war stories, I’ve tried helping out everywhere I can... what else is there, asking Kup and Mags to step in? Asking _Prime_?”

Springer sighed, setting his puzzle cube down. Hot Rod picked it up and started fiddling with it to give his hands something to do. “Nobody’s gonna be able to change their minds with orders, Roddy.” he said, leaning back on his hands. “They think you need protecting because, well, we never saw real _battle_ on Cybertron, not after the Ark left. It’s all been running and hiding, living to fight another day. You need to prove yourself to them somehow. Wrangle a dinobot next time they flip out, maybe.”

That startled a laugh out of Hot Rod. “Have you seen the size of them?” he asked, gesturing vaguely with both arms, letting his curled leg fall sideways on the berth. “I’d get stomped flat!”

“Yeah, probably.” Springer chuckled. “You’ll figure something out, Roddy. You’re more clever than me.”

“Flatterer.” Hot Rod preened, tossing Springer’s puzzle cube back at him. “I’m gonna go see if there’s anything else I can do while I plot.”

“If you get in trouble from whatever you’re planning, I’m not taking the fall for you.”

“You better not.” Hot Rod teased, poking his friend in the side. “I want all the attention for myself, always.”

Springer groaned around a laugh and swatted at him, rote retaliation for a joke long grown comfortable. He’d figure something out, he was sure of it. Easiest would be to just slip into a Decepticon response team, next time the Cons attacked, but Bluestreak seemed certain it would be a while yet until they got another one of those, so he should come up with some alternatives.

\--- 

The alarm cut straight through his focus, blaring loud and insistent through the whole base. He was up and running before he even fully registered it, following the flow of traffic to a loading bay turned briefing room. Optimus and Magnus stood at the front, along with several mechs too short for Hot Rod to make out from his spot on the floor.

“The Decepticons have attacked a new solar plant.” Prime announced, his voice effortlessly commanding the attention of every mech in the room. “The foreman who alerted us claims they are assembling some sort of weapon, so be alert for Starscream and Megatron’s usual brand of unique destruction. Aside from that, standard parameters. Try to keep property destruction to a minimum, prioritise human safety, drive the Decepticons away. That is all.” the bay door lifted with a droning whir and the heavy sound of solid metal plates clunking against each other as they rolled up the track.

Hot Rod’s spark leapt in its casing, energy flooding his lines. He’d been hanging out with the usual first-response mechs, he realized belatedly. Nobody had realized he was here, save for Bluestreak who’d waved when he came in. This was his chance! He just had to find a Con to take down, on his own. Piece of oilcake!

“Autobots, roll out!” Optimus ordered, and Hot Rod transformed with the rest of them, falling to the back as they followed their leader into battle.

The solar plant, when they arrived, was _swarming_ with Decepticons. The twins launched themselves into the fray without hesitation, boosting off of an unsuspecting Con to launch themselves skyward and _grapple_ the seekers who were getting in position for a strafing run. Okay, he was definitely asking them to teach him that trick later, that was cool. And if he could get it back to Elita and her crew, then Arcee's aunts and moms might be able to finally fight back.

Hot Rod flipped back to root mode, pulling his blaster from his subspace as he looked around. Couldn’t be someone too big, but also couldn’t be too far from the battle. There, up on the ridge. Three mechs who looked about his own size, fiddling with something that looked like it was probably the weapon Optimus had mentioned. If he knocked them out and disabled that, nobody would be able to write him off anymore. He flipped back into altmode and tore off along the edge of the battle, weaving between Cons who thought they could hit him. Pit, he’d pay to watch these klutzes try to hit Blurr if that was how they fared against him.

The slope which led up to the mystery weapon was, conveniently enough, an actual dirt road, and Hot Rod took it as fast as he dared, which his HUD told him was at least half again the posted speed limit. He screeched around a tight turn, laid optics on the trio of basically-identical Cons, and flung himself into his transformation sequence, barrelling shoulder-first into the one in the middle. Something went _crunch_ very loudly on impact, and it wasn’t any of his kibble.

“My lense!” one of them cried, and Hot Rod grinned. If they were at a solar plant and Megatron was using lenses, all he had to do was frag them up.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s not nice to shoot a mech in the back?” he teased, grabbing a support strut for the contraption and flash-heating his hands, wrenching it free to use as a rough stave. “You wanna fight, hit them square in the _face_!” he launched forward on the last word, jabbing the heavy rod at the mech he’d rammed into earlier. The Con yelped, arms flying up to guard his face, leaving the disc of crystal on his chest totally open. Hot Rod sank his improvised weapon into it just right of the center, let go, and spun to plant his pede on the other half of the mech’s chestplate, knocking him flat.

“Come on!” he jeered, summoning flames around his fists. “I thought you Decepticons were supposed to be made of sterner stuff than this.”

The two remaining Cons looked at each other, nodded, and came at him as one. Hot Rod laughed, dodging aside and jabbing at one of them, catching him in the shoulder. This was way more fun than trying to fight a seeker, those bastards were hard to ground and if you didn’t cripple a wing or thruster they just popped back up to shoot you from above. Even two-to-one, this fight was a lot more fair, and thus, more fun. Hot Rod laughed freely, bobbing and weaving around the Decepticons and striking flaming blows against them when he could.

“STARSCREAM!” Megatron shouted from the battlefield, and Hot Rod landed a punch when the Con in front of him stiffened at the roar. “Fire the sun-laser!”

Hot Rod couldn’t hear the reply, but he saw the glint at the top of the tower in the middle of the solar plant and looked up at the top of the contraption he’d ripped his impromptu weapon from. Glass, or crystal, he couldn’t actually tell. Whatever it was it was clear as air, gleaming in the light, and arranged in an unmistakable focusing array. Oh, well that was easy enough to fix. One of the Cons he’d been fighting charged him, and Hot Rod grabbed the mech’s arm as he punched past his helm. A quick twist and flip and the Decepticon was flying into the structure, denting it and skewing the fine lenses at the end of the array wildly out of alignment.

An instant later the sun from the top of the tower hit the device, and a spotlight beamed down directly on Optimus, who squinted into it for a moment before turning back to Megatron and saying something that made the warlord bellow with rage and throw himself back into the fight, fist swinging and mace flailing. It wasn’t long after that that the Decepticons retreated, some clutching armfuls of energon cubes, some clutching wounds or wounded comrades. Hot Rod made to tackle one of his opponents, but a pede to the face knocked him back just long enough for the two he’d been fighting to grab their buddy he’d speared in the chest.

“There you are, kid.” Kup wheezed, sounding exhausted. Hot Rod turned around, rubbing at the dent in his cheek. “Been looking all over for you.”

“I’m fine, old mech.” he rolled his optics.

“I know, I know.” Kup walked heavily over to him and hooked an arm around one of Hot Rod’s. “You did this?” he gestured at the damaged structure.

“Yeah.”

“You did good.” Kup nodded, and Hot Rod let his mentor lead him back to the main battlefield, where the Autobots were reconvening for a quick debrief before, he hoped, going back to base. He’d burnt up a lot of fuel flaming out on those Decepticons, and passing out before they got back wouldn’t help his reputation any.

“Kup, Hot Rod.” Optimus acknowledged as they approached. “You’re uninjured, I trust?”

“A bit dinged up, and my old servos won’t be happy tomorrow, but I’ve had worse.” Kup huffed.

“You said that when you got your arm melted off, too.” Hot Rod pointed out.

“It was true then, too.” Kup waved his pointed comment off.

“And you, Hot Rod?”

“Got in a bit of a punch-up, but they only got me once.” he pointed at his cheek, and wondered how defined the pede-print there was. “I got one in his chest lens with a steel beam, and threw one of his buddies into the laser to mess up its calibration before it could fire, but the three of them got away.” he reported, and glanced at Kup to make sure he’d gotten all the important bits. Kup nodded, just slightly, and Hot Rod re-squared his shoulders as he fixed his optics back on Prime again.

“Ah, then we have you to thank for our victory today.” Optimus sounded like he was smiling, behind his mask, and his hand on Hot Rod’s shoulder was as warm as it was unexpected. “It’s no wonder Kup is so proud of you. You’re an exemplary soldier, young Autobot.”

Hot Rod couldn’t help himself, he beamed. If Optimus thought he was a valuable soldier, then it hardly mattered a byte what everyone else thought. He could hardly wait to get back to base and tell his buddies all about this; Springer would be so torqued off he didn’t get to join in the fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The plan, as presented at the Decepticon strategy meeting:  
> 

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies to any not-logged-in readers, but due to an ex who refuses to leave me alone I have had to disable anon comments. Kudos are still open though, and if you want to scream (or would like me to write a fic for you) come check me out on Pillowfort! No account required to get my discord, and I'm always happy to chat. [[Link](https://www.pillowfort.social/GemmaRose)]


End file.
